bugTraverso: A Multitrack Audio Recorder and Editor - Bugs: bug #26140, Cannot start Alsa driver

 
 

bug #26140: Cannot start Alsa driver

Submitted by:  Orcan Ogetbil <oget>
Submitted on:  Fri 10 Apr 2009 06:50:10 AM UTC  
 
Category: Audio Driver BackendSeverity: 3 - Normal
Priority: 5 - NormalItem Group: None
Status: Works For MePrivacy: Public
Assigned to: Remon Sijrier <r_sijrier>Open/Closed: Closed

Add a New Comment(Rich Markup)
   

You are not logged in

Please log in, so followups can be emailed to you.

 

Sat 27 Feb 2010 12:03:18 PM UTC, comment #5:

Looks like a system configuration issue that Traverso can't solve for you, and it does work for me.

If this issue is still valid for you, please consider re-opening this bug.

Thanks,

Remon

Remon Sijrier <r_sijrier>
Project AdministratorIn charge of this item.
Tue 28 Apr 2009 07:39:35 AM UTC, comment #4:

Hello Orcan,

Traverso uses the same alsa driver code as jackd, so if jackd works on your computer, so must Traverso when configured with the same settings.

Unfortunately, this uses an alsa feature unsupported by pulseaudio, but I remember that it should be possible to start pulseaudio in a way that when another application wants to get access to the soundcard, pulseaudio will release it?

The hardware buffer in the soundcard has to be divided into at least 2 'periods' one that is being played from, the other then is free to write new data too.
However, there are some drivers (Intel notably) that don't support this, and need at least 3 periods to work properly.
If 3 periods does not work for you, then it means we can't make everyone happy with just one configuration.
The target of Traverso, or at least the alsa driver code was for professional gear, which does support the default configuration of Traverso.
Patching the source code to make it a fit for your computer configuration doesn't make much sense really, as for many other people the configuration with 2 periods does not work!
The configuration with 2 periods is the best there is though, but it appeared that using 3 periods by default was the best fit for most people.

I'll gladly discuss this matter with you on irc channel #traverso

Getting rid of the pulseaudio problem is most likely supporting pulseaudio out of the box, and having the alsa driver for the 'real' work ;-)
(i.e. using the traverso alsa driver gives you the thinnest layer to your real hardware, giving the best performance and least chance of sound drops)

Remon Sijrier <r_sijrier>
Project AdministratorIn charge of this item.
Fri 24 Apr 2009 04:02:46 AM UTC, comment #3:

I finally got ALSA working with completely removing pulseaudio from my system and setting the No. of periods to 2. When I set it to 3 (which is the default) it doesn't work. So I have two questions:

- What is No. of periods?
- Can you make 2 the default? I made a patch to change this to 2 in the Fedora package but I'm not really sure if I was supposed to.

Orcan Ogetbil <oget>
Fri 10 Apr 2009 06:08:01 PM UTC, comment #2:

Yes, pulseaudio server is running as it is the default in Fedora. I don't like it but there is not much I can do about it. Any plans of supporting non-mmaped access (whatever that means?) ?

I modified limits.conf and I was able to start ALSA driver with regular user, but with Playback only.

I have one Audio card, and the default device should be hw:0,0 in ALSA language, right?

Here are some outputs (all of them with regular user, with realtime privileges enabled in limits.conf)

Jack, full duplex (this one works, despite the warnings):
-----------------------------------------
Connecting to the Jack server...
cannot use real-time scheduling (FIFO at priority -1) [for thread 1792919888, from thread 1792919888] (22: Invalid argument)
Warning: Unable to create "trees" RDF storage.
Performance can be improved by upgrading librdf.
Thank you for using Traverso !
-----------------------------------------

ALSA, full or playback duplex (same output), device: System default (doesn't work)
-----------------------------------------
creating alsa driver ... default|default|1024|3|44100|0|0|-|32bit
configuring for 44100 Hz, period=1024 frames (23.2 ms), buffer=3 periods
ALSA: mmap-based access is not possible for the capture stream of this audio interface
Creating Null Driver...
Starting AudioDeviceThread..... Running!
AudioThread: Running with realtime priority
-----------------------------------------

ALSA, full duplex, device: Card1 - Audigy2 (doesn't work)
-----------------------------------------
AudioDeviceThread finished, stopping driver
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|3|44100|0|0|-|32bit
Creating Null Driver...
Starting AudioDeviceThread..... Running!
AudioThread: Running with realtime priority
-----------------------------------------

ALSA, playback duplex, device: Card1 - Audigy2 (this one works)
-----------------------------------------
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|-|1024|3|44100|0|0|-|32bit
configuring for 44100 Hz, period=1024 frames (23.2 ms), buffer=3 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 16bit little-endian
Starting AudioDeviceThread..... Running!
AudioThread: Running with realtime priority
-----------------------------------------

In all of the above I used
Sample Rate: 44100
Buffer latency: 46.44

For the ALSA configurations, I used
Nr. of periods: 3 (although using 2 doesn't change my results)
Dither: None

Thanks for your time.

Orcan Ogetbil <oget>
Fri 10 Apr 2009 09:03:00 AM UTC, comment #1:

Hi,

Are you running pulseaudio server? In that case it might indeed be a problem to run traverso as it uses mmaped access.

The 'default' driver picks the system configured alsa device, if that does not work, choosing your card with the card selection combobox is your other alternative, which then uses the hardware devices: hw:0 or hw:1 etc

If jack works fine, please post the output of jack, so I can see the difference in configuration between traverso and jack. If the configuration used by jack works, so should the same configuration with traverso.

Traverso wants the group audio to have real time privileges, see the user manual to properly setup your limits.conf

Hope this helps,

Remon

Remon Sijrier <r_sijrier>
Project AdministratorIn charge of this item.
Fri 10 Apr 2009 06:50:10 AM UTC, original submission:

I'm packaging traverso for Fedora/RPMFusion. In order to get this package accepted we need to have the ALSA driver working. We couldn't manage to start the full ALSA driver yet. In my system it fails with:

-----------------------------------------------------------
creating alsa driver ... default|default|1024|3|44100|0|0|-|32bit
configuring for 44100 Hz, period=1024 frames (23.2 ms), buffer=3 periods
ALSA: mmap-based access is not possible for the capture stream of this audio interface
Creating Null Driver...
Starting AudioDeviceThread..... Running!
Warning: Unable to create "trees" RDF storage.
Performance can be improved by upgrading librdf.
-----------------------------------------------------------

If I run traverso as root, the output reads:
-----------------------------------------------------------
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|3|44100|0|0|-|32bit
configuring for 44100 Hz, period=1024 frames (23.2 ms), buffer=3 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 16bit little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
Creating Null Driver...
Starting AudioDeviceThread..... Running!
AudioThread: Running with realtime priority
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only combination that works is:
- I have to run traverso as root
- I have to pick Device hw:1 Audigy 2, because "system default" doesn't work.
- I have to set the duplex mode to playback.
Capture, or Full does not work

Jack works fine, and of course that is more important. But, as I said, we need to get ALSA working to get this package accepted.

Thanks for the very promising application!
Orcan

Orcan Ogetbil <oget>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach File(s):
   
   
Comment:
   

No files currently attached

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -unavailable- added by r_sijrier (Posted a comment)
  • -unavailable- added by oget (Submitted the item)
  •  

    Do you think this task is very important?
    If so, you can click here to add your encouragement to it.
    This task has 0 encouragements so far.

    Only logged-in users can vote.

     

    Please enter the title of George Orwell's famous dystopian book (it's a date):

     

     

    Follow 4 latest changes.

    Date Changed By Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced By
    Sat 27 Feb 2010 12:03:18 PM UTCr_sijrierStatusNeed Info=>Works For Me
      Open/ClosedOpen=>Closed
    Fri 10 Apr 2009 09:03:00 AM UTCr_sijrierStatusNone=>Need Info
      Assigned toNone=>r_sijrier

    Back to the top


    Powered by Savane 3.1-cleanup1